


No Goodbyes

by crowe (thordasgay)



Series: Wolf 359 Canon Epilogue (Kepcobi) [1]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, To Be Continued, also, but then, don't @ me about my linebreaks, it's called style
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-02-28 09:31:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13268616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thordasgay/pseuds/crowe
Summary: Retelling of the Finale (more or less) from Jacobi & Kepler's POV, then post-finale on earth stuff.I'll probably add on.





	1. He knew he was close to death

but Jacobi had nothing to lose. A knee in the gut and a punch to the face from Riemann was incomparable to the pain he was trying to distract himself from in his heart. 

 

_God that was cheesy._

 

Jacobi let out a scoff and Riemann, of course, took that as a challenge. A hard kick in his sides was the response. 

 

But Jacobi couldn’t be bothered to react to the violence.

 

To him, each kick was every word he never said, each punch was a moment, gone forever, thanks to one Warren Kepler’s insufferable ego. 

 

Hell, the man paused long enough in between words, why couldn’t Jacobi take two seconds?

 

Two seconds in the past and maybe Kepler would be on their side,

 

with _him,_

 

_now._

 

Jacobi knew the clock was ticking down, that Riemann was oblivious. His heart was beating in time with the faint ticking only he could hear. Or thought he could hear.

 

He knew Minkowski and Lovelace were on their way to steal the Hephaestus’ remaining core and leave, fulling intending to come back and get Jacobi. But he knew that wouldn’t happen.

 

Riemann would kill him first and ruin everything. 

 

Maybe Jacobi could do one thing right by Minkowski and Lovelace. 

 

If there were any two that deserved to get off this station, it was them. 

 

If on cue, Jacobi’s alarm blared in his ears. Riemann cursed in realization, but Jacobi couldn’t hear him. Jacobi staggered to his feet and looked past Riemann, to the door leading back into the Hephaestus. 

 

 _Thank you, Daniel. And goodbye._  

 

They echoed in Jacobi’s mind like a fucking demon he couldn’t exorcise. Those were the last words that Kepler said to him. Would _ever_ say to him.

 

He knew. 

 

And Kepler knew.

 

Jacobi inhaled a weak breath and choked. His eyes burned with a sensation all too familiar these days.

 

_Warren Kepler, you fucking bastard._

 

A deafening noise, a terrible pain in his left side, and Jacobi’s world went white. 

 


	2. The rush of adrenaline

that pulses through Colonel Warren Kepler’s veins was the only thing keeping him afloat as Rachel slammed the airlock doors. Kepler has never been in this room without a heavy space suit to weigh him down. 

 

He felt. Odd. 

 

He would attribute it to the fact that he was about to suffocate in the deepest vacuum of space, but he was also in a place in the station one should never be without a spacesuit.

 

And there he was.

 

In the airlock.

 

Without a spacesuit.

 

As the situation and his inevitable fate sunk in, a scattered thought, a face, flew into his mind. 

 

_ Daniel Jacobi. _

 

_ Daniel Jacobi being shot. _

 

_ The desperation on Daniel’s face, pleading with Warren. _

 

He blinked in shock when tears appeared in his eyes, then laughed.

 

_ Nothing like being moments away from your inevitable death to finally address your emotions.  _

 

He shook his head and stared at Rachel, who was struggling to peer through the small window. Despite his years of formal training and his desperate attempt not to, Kepler’s hands shook as he dug the canister of scotch out of his pocket. 

 

He hoped Jacobi was smart enough to decipher the meaning in his final sentence.

 

_ What was that meaning?  _ He didn’t even know and he said the damn thing.

 

Kepler carefully unscrewed the lid carefully and took a long, deep drink. 

 

He smiled cautiously. 

 

Jacobi would give him hell if he ever saw Kepler this way. 

 

_ What did he mean _ _?  _

 

The soft spice rested on the back of his tongue. 

 

_ Thank you, Daniel. And goodbye. _

 

In those words lie every word he could have said, 

 

_ would have  _ said _.  _

 

If the circumstances were different, maybe. 

 

He should have lied in his review of Daniel. He thought about it as soon as he left that bar. Too risky, too stubborn. Unwilling to learn. All lies, but then, Daniel would still be a lower level agent, and maybe, just maybe, things might have played out differently between the two.

 

There was a small part of him that wanted to go back in and tell him to never call. To keep living his life. Don’t get deep into Goddard Futuristics. 

 

It wasn’t until that moment in the brig where Jacobi commanded Minkowski to shoot him that he realized that part of him existed. 

 

Because, as he was staring down the barrel of that gun, he felt shock, fear, and

 

_ regret. _

 

The last of his scotch emptied, a warmth engulfed him. Time slowed and his muscles relaxed.

 

_ Thank you, Daniel _

 

Warren Kepler closed his eyes. He saw Daniel, his tired but bright eyes, his messy curly hair. His smile next to Alana. The way one corner of his mouth turned up when he and Maxwell were planning something.

 

The loud exhaust of the exterior doors opening followed immediately by silence. And cold.

 

Kepler’s chest exhaled one last time.

 

_ And goodbye. _


	3. What happens next?

Well Jacobi rescues them, of course.

 

He made it behind the one section of the room that wasn’t hit with the brunt of the explosion. The left side of his body screamed in pain with each step and Jacobi decided not to look at it. 

 

_ Better save that for when we’re not in a decaying orbit.  _

 

Daniel Jacobi hobbled his way through the debris, quickly scanning Riemann’s body for any sign of life.

 

Nope.

 

Good.

 

He leaned against the side of the decimated door frame, took a few shoddy breaths, and kept walking. He needed to find someone.

 

Lovelace.

 

Minkowski.

 

Eiffel.

 

_ Kepler. _

 

No.

 

Kepler probably took a bullet for Cutter or Pryce. He sure was willing to let Jacobi do so.

 

Jacobi scoffed. 

 

What a Kepler thing to do.

 

_ Asshole. _

 

The Hephaestus was on her last legs, shuddering and convulsing, throwing Jacobi around.

 

“Hera,” His voice came up like gravel. He gasped. And focused. 

 

“Hera… are you there?” He paused, and waited.

 

“J-Jacobi?” Her panicked voice filled the room after a terrifying silence, slightly distorted by the compromised speaker system.

 

“Yeah. Yeah! What’s going on? Status?” He was leaning against a wall, free of dangling wires and smoke. 

 

“We’re 10 minutes …om falling past …red line, Jacobi. I… I’m not sur… can make it…” Hera fought through the distortion. Jacobi gathered the rest.

 

The Decaying Orbit. 

 

The Red Line.

 

10 minutes.

 

“Fuck.”

 

Dying in space wouldn’t be such a terrible way to go, if he didn’t know that Goddard definitely deleted any record of him once he departed for this mission.

 

So, instead, he thought,  _ what’s the point of dying in space if no one knows. _

 

He had to figure something out fast.

 

No one could beat his world-class SI-5 villain training and quick thinking. 

 

“Hera, are the main controls for the last core intact.”

 

“Y-yes.”

 

“Can I make it?”

 

“…yes. 

 

Another cough by the station and Jacobi lurched forward. 

 

_ Yes you can.” _


	4. Darkness.

Eyes.

 

Open.

 

White.

 

There was only white.

 

Air.

 

Breath.

 

Oxygen.

 

_ Pain _ .

 

Skin moving, rearranging, being torn from muscle and tendon. Reapplied. 

 

Joints stiff, frozen.

 

Engulfed in white, moving through space and time. 

 

_ Time. _

 

_ I get more Time.  _

 

Eyes.

 

Open.

 

Blue.

 

Stars.

 

Salt.

 

Water.

 

Hands grasp and fail.

 

_ Earth. _


	5. Well I always said the first place I would go, when I’m back, was the beach.

was the first thing Jacobi thought as he lazily drifted on shore, feeling the soft, warm sand shift under him with every rising wave. The saltwater stung his new scars that hugged the left side of his body.

 

Jacobi mused into the salt air.

 

“Space… skin. Skin made… in space,” He speaking to no one in particular. 

 

“Pulvis et umbra humus,” 

 

a gravely voice spoke up from the right of him. Jacobi turned his head to see Captain Isabel Lovelace, or, he guesses just Lovelace now,  _ Isabel _ , crawling out of the water. She looked up to the sun.

 

“We are but dust and shadow. Horace,” Jacobi sat up slowly. 

 

The Urania was beached in front of him. Eif-  _ Doug _ was unsteadily standing up and Minkowski was scanning the forest ahead of them.

“well, color me impressed.”

 

Isabel smirked as Jacobi stood up and was immediately hyperaware of gravity weighing him down. His stomach churned. 

 

He looked up and saw a large, red and white lighthouse.

 

“What? No welcome party?”

 

Minkowski, no,

 

_ Renée _ turned to face him. 

 

“Hera informed us that we were picked up as soon as we entered the atmosphere. We should have company soon,”

 

Jacobi turned away from the ex-Commander and started past The Urania, his home for months, and into the horizon, to Earth, which now felt as alien as Wolf 359 did.

 

Jacobi inhaled. 

 

_ I’m ready to wake up now. _

 

“What do we do now?” He said instead.

 

Jacobi hear soft but confident footsteps next to him.

 

Lovelace.  _ Isabel. _

 

“We live, just like they would want us to.”

Jacobi knew who  _ they  _ were.

 

Maybe “they” for  _ Isabel, Renée, Doug _ , were different.

 

But Daniel Jacobi knew who his “they” were.

 

The sun embraced him.


	6. Chapter 6

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daniel Jacobi listened to the silence. 

 

He woke up before his alarm. 

 

Three months back on land and he still wasn’t used to it, but he felt his body slowly readjusting.

 

He still needed a white noise machine and Hera, surprisingly, was happy to comply.

 

Of course, 

 

For all intensive purposes, 

 

Jacobi went over everything in his head, just like he did every morning.

 

_ I am Daniel Kenneth Jacobi. _

 

_ I am in a house. _

 

_ In Portland, Maine. _

 

_ On Earth. _

 

The group of them didn’t really stray far from their landing site. Maine seemed like a decent place to stay. Renée was in contact with her now ex-husband, their relationship still amicable. Isabel went away for two weeks, only Hera knowing where she went and when she came back, she seemed…

 

_ better. _

 

Daniel was the closet one to the site where they arrived back on Earth. About a two mile or so walk, he found a small neighborhood and a small house. The recovering Doug, Renée, and Isabel (+ Hera’s main operating system) found a bigger apartment, in a bigger city, a 30 minute drive away.

 

Daniel liked being alone, but it was nice to have people he knew so close by. 

 

But other than that,

 

there was this aching loneliness in the still air of his house. Sparsely decorated, the empty chairs and couches taunted him.

 

So one day, he turned them over.

 

Daniel works as a freelance handyman, after his next-door neighbor, Marianne and Danielle (yep.) Kuo discovered he could fix a bad sink in 30 minutes or less (or your money back, guaranteed!). He didn’t mind it. He liked working with his hands. His neighbors were friendly and he sometimes went to other towns.

 

The bags under his eyes never went away though.

 

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZT.

 

A screech permeated the quiet morning light. Daniel flinched.

 

_ I need to get a new alarm. _

 

He opened his curtains and looked over to that same lighthouse he saw his first moments back on solid ground.

 

He would walk to their landing site, once a week or so. He figured it might be good for him, to accept what fate has dealt him. 

 

Sometimes, he would talk to Alana, tell her about Hera’s new essential role in their lives, how she doesn’t glitch anymore, how she would hate the way his place is decorated.

 

One time, near the beginning, he tried to talk to Warren.

 

But he couldn’t say anything.

 

He would just listen.

 

_ And hope.  _

 


	7. One night,

 a dusty bottle shoved in the back of Daniel’s shelf looked inviting.

 

The dust flew in the air as he hesitantly reached for it, thumb brushing over the gold foil label.

 

_ INSERT FANCY SCOTCH HERE. _

 

Daniel laughed.

 

He bought it one day, when he stopped at a liquor store, two weeks after their arrival.

 

Daniel entered the small liquor store, fluorescent light illuminating the multitude of bottles.

 

Minkow-  _ Renée _ was coming over and he figured he should get some wine.

 

_ That’s what friends do, right? _

 

_ Friends. _

He picked up a cheap bottle, and after some convincing from the clerk, a slightly nicer bottle. As he clumsily reached for a few crumpled bills out of his jacket pocket, his eyes settled on an all too familiar bottle. 

 

The clerk was surprised when Daniel asked to purchase it, given the fact that it took so much effort for him to spend more that $10 on some wine. He ignored the look that the clerk gave him, threw two twenties on the counter, and walked out.

 

When he arrived home, he shoved the bottle in the back the cabinet, where now he finds it, six months and two weeks later, singing to him.

 

He opens it, pours a glass, takes a sip, and coughs. He forgot how  _ godawful  _ this stuff was, but also how the burn subsided and warmed his chest and body almost immediately. 

 

He poured another glass.

 

And another.

 

_ No wonder Kepler was so fiercely protective of this stuff. _

 

Like clockwork, the familiar feeling of relaxation and swimming crept in his mind.

 

The next thing he knew, he was walking toward the lighthouse.

 

The night air had a chill that bit his skin, which he realized when he was sitting on the sand, not wearing a jacket. 

 

His hand not clutching the bottle of scotch, rubbed his left shoulder, smooth scarred skin reacting with desperation.

 

The ocean was dark.

 

And endless.

 

For a second, he felt like he was back, orbiting Wolf 359, with those he cared about. 

 

The navy expanse of the ocean, highlighted by moonlight reminded him of the space outside his window, which he found himself frequently staring out of on sleepless nights.

 

His mind swam with the gentle waves as he fell in his normal routine.

He took another sip, the final sip.

 

Warren.

 

_ Warren _ .

 

He shakily stood up.

 

He saw Warren’s desperate face, trying to tell Jacobi something in those final moments.

 

_ Goodbye Daniel, _

 

_ And thank you. _

 

He heard it clearer than he ever had since the actual moment. 

 

He knew what those words meant.

 

What that look,  _ those eyes _ , were supposed to mean.

 

Tears stung in the corners of his eyes and this time he couldn’t hold them back. They fell down Daniel’s face, a long overdue escape.

 

He felt those months of pain escaping through his throat as he chucked the bottle into the ocean and realized he was yelling.

 

_ Goodbye Daniel.  _ Kepler had said.

 

_ Daniel. _

 

_ Daniel. _

 

_ Daniel. _

 

_ Daniel Jacobi. _

_ Jacobi. _

 

“Jacobi!”

 

A voice pierced the serene waves that took over after Jacobi stopped yelling. Daniel whipped his head to the left and the right, but he couldn’t see in the darkness, eyes couldn’t focused.

 

His feet tripped over each other and he stumbled, unable to steady himself on the sand.

 

A figure was approaching him in the dark.

 

“Is..Isabel?” He gasped faintly.

 

The figure reached Daniel and put their hand on his back and wrapped an arm around his waist.

 

_ “Well, Mr. Jacobi… I was hoping you were going to save some for me,”  _

 

and Jacobi fell into the warmth of familiarity.


	8. A sharp pain

In his head is what woke Daniel up that next morning.

 

Or rather, judging by the intensity of the sun streaming through his curtains,

 

_ afternoon. _

 

He let out a loud groan.

 

A loud noise in his kitchen responded.

 

Jacobi sat up quickly, despite his body’s protest and fumbled furiously for the sidearm in his bedside drawer. 

 

His head swam laps as he pointed the gun towards the door frame where a tall body stood.

 

“This house is rigged with C4 but I’ll fucking shoot you before it has a chance to go off, I promise.” Jacobi snapped. There was a moment of silence and stillness while the intruder considered this options. 

 

Jacobi’s finger curled around the trigger.

The figure took a step forward.

 

Jacobi pulled the trigger.

 

_ Nothing. _

 

“The gun isn’t loaded, Daniel” 

 

Jacobi popped down the magazine and stared at it in wonder.

 

“aaaand I know you wouldn’t risk the lives of Kuos and their children next door.”

 

As the intruder stepped into the light, the dense fog that had clouded his mind cleared immediately.

 

_ Last night. _

 

_ The beach. _

 

_ The cold. _

 

_ The lighthouse. _

 

_ The scotch. _

 

_ “ _ Warren?”

 

He didn’t hear him, of course.

 

“Nice women. Marianne came over to check on you after she saw you go out last night. You know she’s a second grade teacher? I told her about that time we were undercover in Oregon and-“

 

“WARREN!”

 

Kepler stopped and quirked an eyebrow at him. 

 

Silence filled the room as Jacobi stared at the dead man before him.

 

_ Supposed to be dead. _

 

He had the same unrelenting brown eyes, the same perfectly styled hair, the same stupid look on his stupid, handsome face.

It was a minute before Jacobi realized he was staring at Warren Kepler, mouth agape. He closed it.

 

“…How?” Was the only thing that managed to escape from his racing mind, the word weak and desperate.

 

Kepler’s face suddenly and uncharacteristically softened. He walked closer to Jacobi, who was still sitting up in bed, a shitty white t-shirt askew on his torso. 

 

“No. Don’t,” Jacobi barked as Kepler reached out. 

 

“ _ Don’t _ . _ ” _

 

Kepler blinked and moved his hand back.

 

“I’m… not sure, Daniel. I just… woke up that night, on that beach, and saw… you.”

 

Jacobi’s stomach flipped, but he wasn’t sure if it was the residual from the alcohol or the way that Kepler carefully said Daniel, like if one syllable was wrong, all of this would disappear.

 

Kepler reached out again, Jacobi now realizing he had a cup of coffee in his hands. Jacobi took it, grateful.

 

Kepler tried not to stare as Jacobi took a hesitant sip. He paused, just before his mouth touched the cup. He glanced up at Kepler.

 

“Black. Dark roast.  _ Not poisoned. _ Just like you like it,” The corner of Kepler’s mouth rose into a careful smirk.

 

Despite what he should have done, Jacobi took a sip.

 

And he was fine.

 

_ Kepler was fine. _

 

_ They _ were fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna right another part but im about to be in Italy for 10 days so uh. 
> 
> Yeet.
> 
> Tell me ur thoughts.


End file.
